Doesn't It Figure

So at the beginning, when Joanna's hands weren't firmly pinned (i.e., swaddled) to her sides at night, she'd keep me up half the night with her slurping on her fingers, and probably didn't sleep all that well herself. But we're approaching the dreaded mega bed transition. AJ will go into a toddler bed and Joanna will go into the crib (and out of the pack 'n play next to our bed). We're also approaching her rolling over (she gets up to about 90°, but then falls back onto her back). I'm not comfortable having her hands pinned when she starts to roll over...and since she often frees herself now anyway, I'm _really_ not comfortable having that swaddling blanket loose around her head when she's not right next to me.

So last night I tried letting her arms go free for at least part of the night. It was definitely helpful to _get_ her to sleep to have her arms pinned (apparently poking yourself in the eye does not promote sleeping. Who knew?), but at the first waking, I tried giving her a pacifier and holding her (loose) hands down until she went to sleep. It was probably like 5 minutes, but in half-asleep time it was an eternity before I finally picked her back up again and bounced for another eternity (i.e., 5 minutes) to get her re-settled. Then when I put her back down, the hand went immediately back into her mouth and I let it stay there (she doesn't suck her thumb, she sucks her middle and ring fingers (and sometimes the pinky too), mostly palm up, but occasionally palm down). Since she has far better fine motor control now, there was far less slurping and she and I were able to get back to sleep. She even managed to _stay_ asleep for almost two hours (I'd told myself that it was back to the swaddling if she woke up before then). So after the next feeding (and we're moving away from nursing in bed since she won't be doing that once she's in her own room), I left her hands free and just put her down. Since I didn't mess with her at the beginning, she got _much_ better sleep and didn't wake again for 3.5 hours! She's been sleeping or at least dozing for the past 2 hours now too!

So the moral of the story, let sleeping babies lie however they want to and you'll get more sleep! These past few weeks that she's been waking every two hours on the dot were probably _my_ fault for keeping her away from those tasty fingers!